02/08/2026
Here's a happy story to hopefully make you smile. It's called,
It takes a village.
I got to help a sweet girl named Sheba today. My neighbor, Kim brought her situation to my attention last week. Sheba's owner passed away and his grandma has been doing her best to try to care for his 3 pit mixes. There were two males and a female (all in-tact) and they've been living in the back yard.
Over the past few weeks of harsh winter weather, this elderly lady has tried very hard to keep the dogs warm. She even put them in crates together and covered them with blankets and tarps. The neighbor who let us know about the dogs had taken a collection of donations from her friends and other neighbors and she had been trying desperately to find somewhere for them to go, or at least get them spayed/neutered.
When I learned of the situation, in my mind the critical need was to get the female out of there before these 3 dogs in need turned into 15. Neutering the males wouldn't immediately solve the problem because they'd still be able to impregnate the female for a week or two, if they hadn't already. Spaying her was the solution but her aftercare would be a big problem. The environment there wasn't a good place for her to heal. And until Den Dad gets his hip replacement we can't even consider taking on more dogs here so we had to find help.
A couple of weeks ago I had a call from one of the new management team members at Valley River Humane Society. I had severed ties with them because of problems with former management. She wanted to rebuild the relationship. I know they're full and have a long wait list but I took a chance and called her. After explaining the situation, begging for help, and even offering the donated funds to cover the dog's costs, she agreed that the female dog had to be removed asap so she put me on hold for quite a long time while she talked with her team. When she returned to the line she said they were going to move some animals around and make a space for Sheba! They made room to help our girl!!!
I picked my neighbor up and went to meet Sheba. This girl was HYPER HAPPY and super strong. She was happy for visitors, happy to get off the cable and very happy to go for a ride. She stunk like 🤮 but boy was she lovable. Kim had to sit in the back seat with her just to keep her from jumping over into the front seat. She wanted to be with people sooooo bad the drive to the shelter felt longer than usual. 😂
I've got to tell you that I was most impressed with the changes I saw at VRHS, starting with the front gate being open! There are a lot of new enclosures and even a whole new building where one of the old nasty ones used to be. Everything was clean and organized and the people were all smiles and friendly. The energy there was very positive. Their intake process has been streamlined so within 10 minutes Sheba was heartworm tested (she's negative), vaccinated and wormed. They have her on the schedule to be spayed on Tuesday and she will be available for adoption immediately. The two boys are on the intake waiting list and we've offered to get help get them there when a space becomes available.
Sheba is about 5 years old and weighs 40 pounds. We already know she's good with other dogs and she was totally non reactive to the cats in the lobby. She is also housebroken, extremely sweet, loves to give kisses and would really appreciate someone to love. If you're interested in your very own house hippo, please contact our friends at Valley River Humane Society in Marble, NC. They never even asked for the donation money we offered but Kim gave it to them anyway because there are a hundred hungry mouths to feed there and they can use every bit of help they can get.
Thank you, VRHS!! And thank you neighbors. Sheba started her new life today because of you all. It truly takes a village ❤️
